


Chained to the Light

by explosionshark



Category: Oxenfree (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 06:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18823201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosionshark/pseuds/explosionshark
Summary: Clarissa and Alex and a bottle of champagne.





	Chained to the Light

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt fill! I've been wanting to write Clarissa/Alex for ages, so it was a struggle to make myself cut things off where I did. I've got an old half-finished longfic project for them shoved off into a corner someplace, maybe I'll finally get to it someday.
> 
> Until then please enjoy! Title from "Shine a Light" by Wolf Parade which is a VERY Oxenfree song.

“ _Please_ , don’t cry,” Alex stutters, horrified. She’s not really in the habit of wishing to go back in time anymore, pretty much every ounce of fun had been sucked out of that particular hypothetical months ago, but if that were an option on the table right now, she’d at least be tempted.

Just back far enough to turn herself around at the edge of Clarissa’s front lawn, like she’d contemplated. Or maybe back to last week to smack some sense into herself when she’d had this idiotic idea in the first place.

“I’m _not_ crying, asshole,” Clarissa says, but the telltale shake in her voice begs to differ. She spins furiously on her heel and heads into the house. Alex waits for the slam of the door but it never comes. Instead, after she lingers just a beat too long on Clarissa’s front step, she’s treated to a thoroughly fed up, “Come _on_ , Alex.”

And maybe that’s a tone you can argue with, but it’s not one you win against. Alex follows, kicking the door shut behind her with her foot.

Clarissa’s in the kitchen rummaging through a cabinet above the sink to retrieve the fanciest looking stemware Alex has ever seen outside of a vampire movie. She glances back over her shoulder, catches Alex’s eye for a tense moment, then jerks her head toward the island between them.

Alex remembers sitting here with Michael the last time she was at Clarissa’s house, two years ago. It’s where they’d cut Clarissa’s birthday cake. Michael was so bad at it, so lovestruck and distracted, all the pieces had come out uneven and ugly. He had utterly _destroyed_ the cake and Clarissa had teased him mercilessly for it, only stopping to lean over the counter to kiss the pout off his face while the rest of them had laughed and groaned.

Alex looks back down at the bottle of champagne she’d brought, the little pink ribbon still tied around its neck.

This was the stupidest fucking idea she’s ever had.

“Where’d you even get this?” Clarissa asks through another sniffle, punctuated by the pop of the champagne bottle and it’s so surreal that Alex can’t stop the high, hysteric bark of laughter that bubbles out of her.

Clarissa’s smouldering glare is enough to put a stop to that wholly inappropriate laughing fit before it starts, at least. Alex clears her throat, glancing around the kitchen to avoid looking at Clarissa’s face while she pours their glasses. “Jonas was moving some furniture around last night, he stumbled across one of Michael’s secret stashes. The bottle was there and the, uh, the card.”

Clarissa nods once, jerky and stiff, and drains the entire flute of champagne in one long swallow. “Yeah. I saw the ribbon and I knew immediately.”

“You knew about it?” Alex can’t help but ask, taking a much more sedate sip of her own drink. She can’t help but wrinkle her nose at the taste and the sensation. That’s going to take some getting used to. “I thought, with the card, it was gonna be surprise.”

“You read the card?” Clarissa scowls and Alex only shrugs. Of course she read the card. “No, he showed me the day he bought it. So we’d have something to look forward to.”

“Oh,” Alex murmurs, spinning the champagne flute around on the countertop with her fingers. “Well. Happy graduation.”

Through unspoken agreement, they decide that whatever this night is, this long goodbye, this second wake, it won’t be over until they’ve killed the bottle. Alex is surprised by how fast the champagne ends up going to her head. Champagne had always seemed like the thing rich people on tv drank at parties to emphasize their fanciness, not like the kind of thing that could get you hammered in your dead brother’s ex girlfriend’s living room.

There’s music now, at least. The kind of depressing as hell faux 80s new-new wave stuff that Clarissa likes. It’s better, Alex thinks, than the kind of stuff Michael would have listened to, even if they are here to memorialize him. Sublime or Jack Johnson just really wouldn’t do the trick.

“God, you’re right,” Clarissa laughs, leaning her head back onto the couch so that her hair brushes against Alex’s bare arm and that’s when Alex realizes she’d spoken out loud. “His taste in music sucked. But it took me forever to figure out, because he was always playing the coolest mixes in his car.”

“I made him those,” Alex divulges, lowering her voice even though they’re the only two people in the house, Clarissa’s parents gone for the weekend on some couples retreat with their church. “He saved, like, all of them. I swear we found every shitty mix I ever made him in the CD visor of his car.”

Clarissa’s smile at that is slow blooming, soft around the edges and more than a little breathtaking. She smells like champagne and something fruity, and her cheeks are dusted pink, hair slightly askew and for a moment things are beautifully simple.

Two girls and an otherwise empty house and a bottle of liquor between them.

Alex pushes herself up on one elbow, twists around and off the edge of the couch to press a chaste, clumsy kiss Clarissa’s mouth.

It’s short. Alex didn’t mean it to be more than that, didn’t mean it to be anything really, but it’s still a relief when just as she’s pulling away, right at the end she feels Clarissa lean into it a little.

“Sorry,” Alex says, falling back onto the couch. Clarissa doesn’t look mad and Alex is too drunk to regret it yet. “Was that fucked up?”

“Maybe,” Clarissa shrugs and takes another long swallow of champagne.

The bottle’s almost gone. Alex isn’t sure if she’ll be stumbling home on her own after, if she’s going to have to call Jonas for a ride, or if Clarissa will let her crash on the couch.

For the first time in months, though, she’s not worried about what’s going to happen next.

Maybe that’s a little stupid, but it’s hard to dwell on it when Clarissa leans back into the couch again, reaching back behind her to grab Alex’s hand and squeeze it once before dropping it again.

“I’m glad you came by.”

Alex is too.


End file.
